


For the Love of One Morning

by countingpaperstars



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Chance Meetings, Crossroads, Duet, Falling In Love, M/M, Romance, Strangers, conversation through music, liminal spaces, strangers play piano at the train station
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 19:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countingpaperstars/pseuds/countingpaperstars
Summary: Electricity hums in the air, whether from the zap of lightning outside or the sparse space between them, Ignis can’t say. He admires the tense and flex of the stranger’s hands, his enthusiastic and passionate movements compared to the smooth fluidity of his own - two contrasting pieces of a puzzle locking together in a picture of their own.While waiting for his delayed train, Ignis spies one of the pianos scattered around the station. When he meets Gladio, their first conversation is through duet.





	For the Love of One Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Recipeh_for_Success](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recipeh_for_Success/gifts).



> I raced to clean this up in time for [recipeh-for-success'](https://recipeh-for-success.tumblr.com/) birthday, which is today! She is a lovely person and you should definitely go send her some good wishes <33 
> 
> This whole fic is based off of >>>[this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I_NYya-WWg)<<< which still gives me chills. There's a station announcement in the beginning but if you stick it out, the duet really starts going around 1:47! The title is a combination of the songs they play, 'One Morning' by Yiruma and 'For the Love of a Princess' from Braveheart.
> 
> Happy birthday Angie! Enjoy!

The humidity is stifling despite the frigid air conditioning on full blast, the taste of ozone thickening as torrential waves of rain thunder against the windows. Ignis sighs and checks the departure board once more, a red line echo of ‘delayed’ down the list of trains. He’s thankful he planned a full extra day for travel, in case of such an event, but the reassurance does little to ease the sticky air or sluggish thoughts from his mind.

Boredom is an unfamiliar itch beneath his skin. Usually, it’s nothing more than a fleeting pest prompting him to either action or inaction in quick resolution, but he’s been here for _hours_ and exhausted both approaches.

People watching has grown old, surrounded with the same resigned faces trapped by circumstance at a crossroads lit by dull fluorescent lights - tourists clustered around their suitcases in a pack, a studious professor typing furiously on his laptop, a lone backpacker fast asleep over their cargo, parents wrangling their three children into some semblance of order. Ignis’ eyes linger on the handsome stranger sprawled in a chair across from him, nose deep in a thick novel, and when their eyes accidentally meet, he’s quick to look away. 

Across the open terminal, his gaze catches once again on an upright piano set off to one side. The two young girls joyfully picking the keys at random are herded away by their mother, and not for the first time, Ignis’ fingers twitch in anticipation. Only the weighted presence of a room full of strangers keeps him in his seat as the clocks tick on, until the boredom threatens to smother him. He grabs his shoulder bag and picks his way across the room at the worn bench.

Damp sticks to the back of his neck, Lestallum’s heat barely dampened by the raging storm outside, and he fights the urge to curl his shoulders against several pairs of eyes. He focuses on getting his hands into position, tracing the keys with feather light touches as he decides on a Tenebrian composition.

Once he starts it’s easier to keep going, only fumbling a note once or twice before he settles into muscle memory of the slow, sonorus tune. His mind goes blissfully quiet, boredom a stranger once more as his fingers dance across the notes with practiced ease. 

It’s always been easier to express himself through music, every note a word freed from the trap within his chest and left up to interpretation. He doesn’t have to explain the emotions filling the notes - they merely exist. He’s a good chunk of the way through the song when he feels a presence hovering nearby over his shoulder. 

A finger slips, awareness of his hands and their movements skyrocketing, but he tries to slip back into that blissful ignorance of the crowd around him. It’s a lot harder when said person leans over to plink against some of the higher keys.

Irritation spikes up Ignis’ spine at the intrusion, only to flatten when he realizes the stranger at least has some idea of what they’re doing, picking out the notes that fit in with the key of his song. They’re tentative, soft additions that blend with the melody as they match his tempo. An echoing call.

It’s a man, his hand broad and fingers sturdy as he strings notes together in a cycling riff, and Ignis feels him leaning over the bench. He doesn’t dare to glance in fear of his hands slipping, and slowly they gain a feel other each other through the lines of music. 

There’s some level of disconnect between them, clunky beginnings and endings mismatched ever so slightly. The stranger revises his improvisation, tentatively reaching out in hope of connection.

Something shifts, clicking into place as the edge of the man’s grin sharp in the corner of Ignis’ eye as his fingers come down in a more sure-footed progression. It’s not a piece from the original song, but regardless the melody weaves seamlessly with Ignis’ groundwork - a tune from a historical romance movie.

Ignis slows in surprise, fingers lingering where they’ve pressed into his last notes and he gazes up at the handsome man who had sat across from him earlier. The length of his long hair is wrangled in a half bun, the rest left to fall forward like a curtain between them and the watching crowd. Stubble shadows the angle of his jaw and Ignis feels frozen as he repeats the melody, smile bright and honey gold eyes twinkling with amusement.

_I may have played it_ , they seem to say, _but you recognized it._

Unable to dispute it, Ignis gives in to the smile tugging at his lips and gestures for him to continue. The man pauses as Ignis fingers settle into the right key, gently paving a path for him to follow. Together they stumble through it, right hands synchronizing in octaves as Ignis’ left fills the space inbetween.

The man stretches his hand wide to reach a lower parallel, confidently hitting the notes in time with Ignis’ rolling accompaniment. Ignis forgets about the people around them - forgets the stares and the hum of the chatter, the station with its tile floors, the raging storm, the delay. All that exists is the piano, this stranger, and the conversation between them.

Heat passes close behind him as the man switches sides, left hand appearing to grab the lower notes. His fingers fly over the keys and Ignis matches pace as he assumes the part of the melody, jumping an octave to give them both room to work. It’s then that it really clicks, the rigidity of the music opening to a field of their own interpretation, his right hand and the stranger’s left moving in harmony. He can’t help the fond smile and head shake as the man slips back into his rambunctious style of hitting the keys.

Electricity hums in the air - whether from the zap of lightning outside or the sparse space between them, Ignis can’t say. He admires the tense and flex of the stranger’s hands, his enthusiastic and passionate movements compared to the smooth fluidity of his own - two contrasting pieces of a puzzle locking together in a picture of their own. 

This song hasn’t ever held any particular meaning to him before, but as Ignis opens up to the possibilities of their own masterpiece he doubts he’ll ever hear the original the same way again. Not now that they’ve unraveled the song only to weave it back together - moulded it into something new, something _more._

It feels like longing, like reaching out for something he never had the courage to grab.

Overwhelmed by the strength of the ache in his chest, Ignis slows after the refrain. The stranger continues on and he finds himself unable to let the magic end and reaches for the higher notes, hearing an echoing response in broken fragments. The stranger brushes him with his elbow, Ignis distractedly glancing over to where the man pointedly taps a key. It takes a few more indications for it to click and they rapidly swing into the opposing octaves once again.

They break into their respective pieces, Ignis’ run of chords the stranger’s flowing highs and lows of arpeggios, and something builds inside his chest. Their hands fall definitive and deliberate in sharp parallels as they pick up speed, Ignis’ heart racing along to match pace. Somewhere along the way he’s become the very song itself, body merely an instrument for its story, for their story they’ve made together.

In the corner of his eye he can see the man flashing off his self-assured grin, oozing charisma to those watching and recording. Ignis’ fingers nearly slip, but he strikes the thought from his mind in favor of pursuing the difficulty of his piece with vigor. He wants to push the swell in his chest out through his fingers, wants to feel the reverberating answer beside him, until there’s nothing left.

The music slows into a push and pull of rhythm and tempo, a valley of patient notes before it rises in another sloping mountain the stranger crests as Ignis follows behind. They’re both deep, their bodies swaying with the fervor they chase after their duet in separate, synchronized entities - two planets orbiting a sun closer and closer, faster and higher, as Ignis burns with a deep rooted passion he had nearly forgotten. 

Their hands fly across the keys before landing in unison and breaking apart like waves in the ocean, Ignis building the steady path the stranger dances his melody across. 

Another drawl in the notes and the man reaches across him, hands bumping clumsily to find the lower notes once more and both of them pick up the slack in the respective parts. On a swell of courage, Ignis takes the time to show off his own quick-witted riffs - a flourish here, a small key slide there - as the tempo rises and rises, another peak in the path they’ve carved for themselves, until the notes draw long in a fast approaching end he never wants to reach.

They strike a chord together, twice, thrice, and Ignis is sure they’ve reached the culmination of their efforts, but still the stranger lingers in a final build up. Ignis plays along until the man’s fingers dance over his hands in a rising finale and he gestures for Ignis to slide a glissando down the entirety of the piano’s keys. Ignis rolls his eyes at the silly move, but follows through regardless and they stop, locked in each other’s gaze and the world they’ve created for themselves.

Applause shatters the illusion, but Ignis can hardly find it in himself to care that they bore witness to their duet. They were merely an audience on the outside, witnessing only the display and none of the intimacy. He and the stranger had created a conversation of their own, reverberated each other’s emotions and ideas in harmony, despite the fact they never said a word to each other.

The tips of Ignis’ ears burn when the other man shoots a wink at a directed camera phone and he rises, gathering his bag and offering a shallow, humble bow before retreating. He returns to his original seat across the hall, glancing at the red delayed display unchanged. It feels less oppressive in the station now, the storm calming outside as someone drops into the chair beside him.

“I’m surprised you knew that tune.” 

The stranger props an ankle over one leg, resting his elbow on the back of the chair. He sets his chin in his hand and gives Ignis a thorough once-over, lips tilted in a satisfied smirk.

“I’m surprised you kept up,” says Ignis, and his chest squeezes when it earns him a brilliant grin.

“Gladio,” he says, offering his hand. His grip is firm, yet gentle - every bit of power he’d thrown into their song evident as much as his grace. 

“Ignis.”

He watches Gladio repeat the name underneath his breath, eyes twinkling. “Well, Ignis, that was some real talent. How long have you been playing?”

“My whole life, it feels,” says Ignis, clasping his hand over the burning imprint Gladio’s left behind. “And yourself?”

“About the same. My ma made sure both my sister and I developed into well rounded people.”

Ignis lets his gaze linger pointedly as he looks Gladio over. “I’d say she succeeded.”

Their eyes catch, embers flaring in Ignis’ chest as they smoulder beneath Gladio’s attention. “Are you Insomnia bound?”

“Eventually,” says Ignis, eyes flickering over to the delays once more.

Gladio laughs, his hand edging closer across their knees until their fingers bump. “In that case, could I _eventually_ take you out for a cup of coffee?”

It steals the very breath from Ignis’ lungs - the tentative reach for connection in parallel to the melodies they’d played. How strange that they met here of all opportunities, in a place of crossroads both great and small. Gladio’s waiting for an answer, for reciprocation, and Ignis takes a deep breath, digs for that swell of courage, and takes his hand.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts?
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/countpaperstars) | [writing blog](http://countingpaperstars.tumblr.com) | [tumblr](http://thenameisfame.tumblr.com)


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